Last month, Dark Castle Entertainment announced that a series is in the planning stages for the 2001 movie THIR13EN Ghosts, or Thirteen Ghosts and 13 Ghosts, as it’s also known. The movie was a remake of the 1960 William Castle orgin, speerheaded by the production company that was formed by Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Gilbert Adler, who were all instrumental in bringing Tales from the Cyrpt to HBO in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
It’s a shame this movie had the unfortunate luck of being released about six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks in the Fall of 2001. It’s by no means a horror masterpiece, but I think it could’ve at least been remember as a cheesy B-movie throwback with a big budget. I think a lot of critics had bugs in their keisters and that’s why they went after this movie so savagely the way they did. Movies like Collateral Damage (which had a subplot about a terrorist bombing) and Gangs of New York (which ended in the violent 1863 NYC Draft Riots) had been pushed back to 2002 after being scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2001.
While those two movies focused on more serious topics, no one going into the theaters to see this movie could get offended. I give the filmmakers a lot of credit for casting actors with Syrian and Lebanese ancestry. It’s a movie that breaks traditional cliches about non-white characters and makes them the mostly the heroes. It’s also nice to see Tony Shalhoub in one of his rarest roles where he’s the lead and not playing some goofy, comical character like he did on the show Wings and in comedies like Quick Change and Men in Black.
The movie opens with Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham in a role he’s having too much fun) as a wealthy man who’s trying to capture a ghost called the Juggernaut in a junkyard that looks left over from where Freddy Krueger’s bones killed Jon Saxon in the third Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Cyrus has hired Dennis Rafkin (Matthew Lillard), a pscyhic to help his crew capture the ghost in a containment unit comprised of thick glass with incantations in Latin to keep them out. Well, if Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson can play ghost busters, why can’t Shaggy and Salieri?
The concept is silly but the execution by director Steve Beck makes it work. Of course, things go wrong. Most of the crew members are killed, as it also seems Cyrus. A spiritual liberator is also killed, who is part of a crew led by Kalina Ortezia (Embeth Davidtz) attempted to stop Cyrus. The set-up is very well made even if it’s so ludricrous. Beck had worked for Industrial Light and Magic for years before easing into the director’s chair in his first of only two movies. The other was Ghost Ship, which I posted about earlier this month.
Switching gears to focus on Cyrus’ nephew, Arthur (Shalhoub), who is grieving the death of his wife, Jean (Kathryn Anderson) who died months earlier in a house fire. Arthur and his children, Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and Bobby (Alec Roberts), are living in a cramped apartment with a nanny, Maggie Bess (Rah Digga). It’s never made sure if Maggie lives with them or just takes care of Bobby during the day. Elizabeth was 28 when the movie was released and looks way too old to be a teenager who still needs a nanny.
My guess was that Kathy was supposed to be a lot younger and Elizabeth was hired based on her popularity following the first American Pie movie. For the most part, it’s a reactionary role where Elizabeth is really given nothing much to do. Anderson was born in 1944 and Shalhoub was born in 1953 so it is logically possible they could have a daughter in their 20s as well as Bobby despite the age difference. My guess is that after the house fire, Arthur and Bobby moved in with Kathy who functions also as a nanny as well as Maggie.
It’s not important. What is important is Cyrus’ lawyer, Ben Moss (JR Bourne), shows up at their door informing them of his death and Arthur is the sole heir to his fortune, which includes a house made of glass sheets with the Latin phrases all over them. At first, everyone’s happy to follow Moss to the house so Arthur can sign the necessary paperwork to move in. Kathy is very excited to be having her own private bath at first but that’s the extent of her role up until the very end.
But they have someone already there. Rafkin has shown up in the guise of an electrician saying he needs to check the breakers and all that jazz. Since Moss is unaware of who he really is, he’s allowed in. But Rafkin, wearing special glasses that are able to see the ghosts, realizes that all 12 ghosts he and Cyrus captured are imprisoned in the basement of the house. And as he tries to warn Arthur, Moss goes to collect his money unknowingly attracting a lever that releases all ghosts from their captivity.
It’s here I wish the filmmakers delved more into the backgrounds of the ghosts. (Reportedly that’s what the series is meant to do.) A lot has gone into making the ghosts stand out, but they aren’t giving nothing much to do except for a few jumpscares. You don’t have to be a genius to know that Moss is going to meet a quick end early on. So what the movie delves into is a haunted house story where you know no one left alive is going to have to worry about being killed off.
The ghost of Cyrus appears as well as Kalina who informs Arthur and his family about how the house is a machine and can only be shut down with the 13th ghost which is a sacrifice of love, meaning Arthur may have to die to save his family. But we soon learn things aren’t what they seem. Rather than focusing on a generic story with twists you can see coming without the need of special glasses, a movie like this should’ve focused more on the other ghosts.
It reminds me so much of Alien Nation, a sci-fi crime thriller about alien humanoids from a slave ship that land in southern California and become part of the population only to face prejudice. That movie had a great set-up that was nothing more than some buddy cop police procedural about drug dealers. The short-lived series on Fox developed by Kenneth Johnson delved further into the interactions between humans and humanoids in a modern-day setting.
Getting back to Ghosts, the set design is amazing and the performances by Shalhoub and Abraham are worth the price of admission. Shalhoub was finally starting to be taken seriously following roles in Big Night and The Siege. And Abraham is always a delight to watch anytime he’s on screen. Lillard and Davidtz do what they can with their roles but they’re so underwritten.
Reportedly James Gunn performed rewrites on the script but was uncredited. Silver is known for making dramatic changes to movies before, during and after filming. Just FYI, according to the DVD special feature which was narrated by Cyrus and infor on the movie’s Wikipedia post, here is the background on the ghosts:
- The First Born Son: (played by Mikhael Speidel) Billy Michaels was a young boy who loved pretending to be a cowboy One day, another little kid challenged Billy to a duel, but Billy’s cap gun was no match for the boy’s real steel-tipped arrow that Billy’s ghost still carries. Unlike most of the ghosts, this one is a mild threat, never attacking anyone and just saying “I want to play.”
- The Torso: (played by Daniel Wesley) Jimmy ‘The Gambler’ Gambino was a gambler in the early 1900s, who caught the attention of the Mafia. After he lost a boxing bet and didn’t have the money to pay up, the Mafia cut him into pieces and wrapped him in cellophane, dumping the remains in the ocean. His ghost appears as a torso with a severed head nearby, and is more a neutral spirit than actively hostile.
- The Bound Woman: (played by Laura Mennell) Susan LeGrow was the richest girl in town and was very popular in school. Her one flaw was the way she flirted and toyed with boys and men, leaving a long trail of broken hearts. During her senior prom night, Chet Walters, a star quarterback caught Susan cheating on him with another boy. The next day, the boy was found beaten to death and Susan had gone missing. Susan was found dead two weeks later buried beneath the fifty yard line of the high school’s football field. Her ghost lures Bobby into the dangerous basement and still shows in her prom attire, bound ropes holding her arms.
- The Withered Lover: (played by Anderson) Jean Kriticos was a happy and devoted wife and mother. She died as a result of fire injuries at St Luke’s Hospital half a year before the events of the film begin. Unlike most of the ghosts, she is not dangerous; she is benevolent
- The Torn Prince: (played by Craig Olejnik) Royce Clayton was a gifted and famous teenage baseball player in the 1950s who caught the eye of colleges around the USA. He died in a drag race, thanks to his challenger, a greaser who cut his brake lines. His remains are still buried at the baseball diamond, and his ghost carries his baseball bat.
- The Angry Princess: (played by Shawna Loyer) Dana Newman was a beautiful but abused lady who lived in the late 20th century. She had plastic surgeries to alter her perceived flaws, and after a botched experiment that mutilated her eye, she brutally killed herself in a bathtub at the clinic. Her ghost is bloody, naked, and carries the same knife she used to commit suicide.
- The Pilgrimess: (played by Xantha Radley) Isabella Smith came to North America as a colonist in order to find a new life after being an orphan in England. The tight-knit community ostracized and ignored her and used her as a scapegoat being accused of witchcraft when crops and animals mysteriously died. She denied such accusations, but she was trapped in a burning barn but managed to escape unharmed. That sealed her fate, and she died of starvation after being condemned to the pillory that she carries with her as a ghost; her skin is badly damaged.
- The Great Child: (played by C. Ernst Harth) Harold Shelburne was a mentally disabled man who never outgrew diapers and had to be spoon fed even as a fully grown adult; he often made baby sounds. After being mocked, teased and tormented relentlessly all his life, he caused a massacre at the old freak show where he and his mother, Margaret Shelburne, lived. Some of the freaks had kidnapped and killed his mother as a joke one night. The circus owner, Jimbo, had Harold mutilated beyond recognition. His ghost appears as Harold did in life, with a small patch of hair, a bib covered in vomit, and cloth diapers; he still holds the ax that he used to kill his enemies.
- The Dire Mother: (played by Laurie Soper) Margaret Shelburne, Harold’s mother, was a shy little lady, standing three feet tall. She never could stand up for herself. At the freak show where she lived, she was raped by the Tall Man, another circus freak, and gave birth to her illegitimate son Harold, whom she loved more than life itself. She smothered and spoiled him from infancy and never stopped as he grew; this is the main reason for Harold’s mental handicap. The two were abused to the point where Harold killed almost the entire circus after Margaret died. As ghosts, they remain together, with Harold being protective. Like the Torso, she is not aggressive, and is more of a neutral spirit.
- The Hammer: (played by Herbert Duncanson) A happy and honest family man and blacksmith in the early 1890s, George Markeley was falsely accused of stealing by a higher up named Nathan, and threatened with exile from their old Western town. Knowing he was innocent, George stood up to Nathan and refused to leave. One day, when George’s family was walking home from the market, Nathan and his gang of thugs attacked and killed them brutally. Enraged, George took his blacksmith’s hammer, tracked down Nathan and his friends, and beat them to death but the townsfolk chained him to a tree outside his blacksmith shop and drove railroad spikes into his body. His left hand was cut off and his hammer was crudely attached to it. His ghost is one of the more angry spirits, and is partially responsible for Dennis’ death.
- The Jackal: (played by Shayne Wyler) Born to a prostitue in 1887, Ryan Khun developed a sick appetite for women, attacking and raping strays and prostitutes in the night. Seeking to be cured of his insatiable appetite, Ryan voluntarily committed himself to Borehamwood Asylum for treatment. But after years of solitary confinement Ryan went completely insane, scratching on the walls so violently his fingernails were torn completely off. In response, the doctors kept him permanently bound in a straightjacket tying it tighter whenever he acted out, contorting his limbs. After gnawing through his straitjacket to get free, the doctors locked his head in a cage and sealed him away in a cell in the basement. while there, he developed a hatred of humanity, screaming madly and cowering whenever approached by people. When the asylum burst into flames, he chose to stay behind and perish in the fire while everyone else escaped. His ghost carries his torn straitjacket with the torn cubic head cage; it is called a sign of Hell’s Winter. He is one of the more aggressive and violent ghosts, attacking and nearly killing Kathy before Kalina saves her.
- The Juggernaut: (played by John DeSantis) Horace ‘Breaker’ Mahoney was born very disfigured and was an outcast his entire life. His mother abandoned him at a tender age, and his dad put him to work in the junkyard, using his unusual strength to crush cars. After his dad died, Horace went insane: he would take motorists and hitchhikers, tear them apart with his bare hands and feed the remains to his dogs. After several of these murders, he was arrested. A SWAT Team shot and killed him when he broke free of his hand cuffs. As a ghost, he remained at the junkyard with his body riddled with bullet holes, killing intruders. Both Dennis and Cyrus remark that his kill count numbered in the 40s, making his ghost one of the most evil and dangerous of the twelve.
Like I said earlier, the critics didn’t like it even though opinions have changed. Produced on a budget of $42 million, which is a lot for a movie like this, it made about $68 million at the box office. If this had been released earlier during the summer of 2001, it would’ve probably been more of a success.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 